Archived: Clare Court Care Centre

Updated 29 April 2015

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.

This inspection took place on 5 January 2015 and was unannounced.

The inspection team consisted of two inspectors and an expert by experience. An expert by experience is a person who has personal experience of using or caring for someone who uses this type of care service. The expert by experience had recent experience of using care and health services.

We reviewed the information we held about the service and the provider. This included notifications received form the provider about deaths, serious injury, accidents and safeguarding alerts. A notification is information about important events which the provider is required to send us by law. We reviewed the information we had received from Birmingham Local Authority who arranged services at the home. We used this information to inform our inspection.

Before the inspection, we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We received the PIR within the required timescale and used the information from this to help inform our inspection process.

We used the Short Observational Framework for inspection (SOFI). SOFI is a way of observing care to help us understand the experience of people who could not talk with us.

On the day of our inspection we spoke with nine people, six relatives, two health care professionals and eight staff. We also spoke with the registered provider and manager. We observed how staff supported people generally, during lunch and with activities.

We also sampled four people’s care records to check they received the care and support they needed. We sampled four staff files to confirm there was a robust recruitment process, training and support for staff. We looked at maintenance, complaints, medication records and audits used by the provider to monitor the quality of the service.

Updated 29 April 2015

Our inspection took place on the 5 January 2015. We last inspected the home in 8 October 2013 when we found that all regulations assessed were being complied with.

Clare Court Care Centre provides personal and nursing care with accommodation for up to seventy nine adults. Some of the people that lived there were living with dementia others suffered from illnesses associated with old age or physical disability. The home was a purpose built building and was accessible to people with decreased mobility throughout. On the day of our inspection 76 people were living in the home.

There was a registered manager in post. A registered manager is a person who has registered with the Care Quality Commission to manage the service. Like registered providers, they are ‘registered persons’. Registered persons have legal responsibility for meeting the requirements in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and associated Regulations about how the service is run.

Interactions between staff and the people who lived at the home were positive, friendly, polite and caring. All the relatives and people spoken with told us that they were happy with the care provided.

All the staff spoken with understood their responsibilities around the protection of people from harm and abuse. Staff were knowledgeable about people’s needs and any associated risks and had received training in how to ensure that people were protected from risks and injury.

People that could tell us told us that they did not have to wait for assistance. We saw that at some times of the day the staffing levels meant that some people living with dementia had to wait for assistance to be assisted to eat their meals.

People were supported to receive their medicines as prescribed but there were some practices we saw that could people at risk of accidentally receiving the wrong medicines.

People’s ability to make decisions had been assessed so that their rights could be protected. Where people’s rights to leave the building were restricted applications were being made to ensure that the restrictions were lawful and in people’s best interests.

People enjoyed their meals and people expressed their satisfaction with the food they received. People were supported to have their dietary needs met and any risks associated with food and drink intake were managed appropriately.

People received the support they needed to have their social, daily care needs and health needs met. People and their relatives told they were happy with the care they received and that they knew how to raise their concerns if they needed to.

There were systems to gather the views of people about the service and there were audits to monitor the quality of the service provided. We saw that the service was well led and a good service was provided however, there were some issues that could be improved.